Finding himself unable to reflect with pleasure or pride upon this
interview, Charles resolved, within the hour, not to reflect upon it at
all. For the fourth time--or was it the fourteenth?--he determined to
think of Egoettes no more. At least, he had given his warning,
unthanked, and that ended it. He might rest upon the ground that the
match would really be a very suitable thing; or, conversely, he might
argue that Donald was just amusing himself a little with Angela, at odd
times, while at heart perfectly true to Helen, etc. But chiefly he stood
upon the warning which made all this Mary Wing's concern henceforward,
and no longer his. And, bent upon bringing his last relation and duty in
the case to a clear, honorable conclusion, Charles sallied from the
Studio next morning with the new "Marna" tucked under his arm.
But there seemed to hang a curse over everything connected with this
unhappy book. Because he had brought it with him to-day, the azure
heavens became overcast at noon; at two o'clock, it was drizzling
dismally; and all that afternoon, and all the next day, the cold rain
poured in torrents. To call in such home-keeping weather would be a
wanton provocation: Charles hung off, yet again. The third day proved
well worth waiting for, a brilliant, blue, and tingling day, gloriously
inviting to all owners of vehicles. And now a new plague befell. When
Charles emerged from Miss Grace's on this day, his face firmly set for
his duty, the Big Six wasn't there.
The discovery was most disconcerting. The young man stood irresolute on
the Choristers' steps, "Marna" clutched in his hands, gazing up and down
the street.
Unfortunately, Eustace's habits had not been kept completely virtuous by
his light duties with his mistress's tutor. The grinning black rascal
had got himself pleasantly illuminated the first day, and had remained
in that state with considerable consistency ever since. However, being
kept excellently tipped, he had never failed to meet an appointment
before; and Charles, eyeing the spot where Jehu should have been, but
wasn't, was most unpleasantly struck with his own sense of helplessness
ensuing. It really appeared that soft custom had made him as dependent
on the limousine as if he lacked the means of locomoting for himself.
He scanned the horizon. Many vehicles rolled up and down Washington
Street, but his own swift chariot was nowhere among them.
Then, while he irritably hesitated between telephoning to the garage, on
the off chance that Eustace might be there, and tamely abandoning the
enterprise once more, a third alternative, ingenious in its way, quite
unexpectedly offered itself. Down the street came jogging a carriage for
hire--empty. Providence seemed to be directing straight at him, Charles.
And, by chance, he knew this old carriage well; Walter Taylor's
carriage, it was; many and many a time had it driven him forth to
parties when he was young and gay.
On the first quick impulse, Charles went springing down the Choristers'
steps.
"Walter!... Here, you old rascal! Where're you going?"
"At libbuty, suh!" cried Walter Taylor, drawing rein with alacrity.
"Whar mout you wish to be druv, Mist' Garrott?"
"Well!--Perhaps I'll let you--"
The young man hesitated, fractionally, struck with the rattletrap's
supreme lack of dignity. Then, with decision, he plucked open the
weather-beaten door.
"One seven East Center. And look sharp now!" he ordered, stepping
in--"I'm in a hurry. Mind you don't stop for anything!"
"Yassuh! Sutney, suh!" said Walter Taylor, with great enthusiasm, and
gave his old nag a prodigious wallop.
So it fell out that, for his first call at the Flowers' since the
bridge-party--his party-call, his book-call, and his call about the
Kiss--Charles Garrott fared forth in a closed livery hack.
Inside the hack, Charles laughed briefly; and then at once began to
react. In the fine afternoon, numbers of people were abroad. Strangers
seemed to look with surprise at the apparently able-bodied young man who
liked thus to trot around in a hack; chance acquaintances were seen to
smile in passing; more than one called out derisive remarks. Charles
himself questioned whether his employment of the hack was quite
reasonable.... Seemed inconsistent till you stopped to think. Inasmuch
as he was going straight to see Angela, why, it might be asked, all this
elaborate precaution in advance? Well--there was really no inconsistency
there; no, none at all. He was _not_ going to see Angela; he was only
going to pay The Call, while she was out in her Fordette--a totally
different matter. But this raised fresh questions of consistency: how
was he going to hold his position that Angela was just the wife for
Donald, if he himself would only go to see her in a hack?... Well, the
answer to that was simple enough, too. Donald was a marrying man, while
he, Charles (though probably still liked best) emphatically was not.
Moreover, Donald was a primitive male, while he, Charles, was a
modern.... Or, no, perhaps he wasn't a modern, exactly--but--yes, he
_was_ a modern, a true one, while others he could name were only
self-centered extremists....
At Gresham Street, the hack turned south, at Center it turned back west.
Walter Taylor, up aloft, began to look for his street-number. And then,
while Charles still argued uneasily about the spiritual differences
between Donald and himself, his eye all at once fell on Donald in the
flesh, close by--striding up Center Street homeward on his way from the
office he left so early now.
The sight of the youth at this moment was unwelcome to Charles.
Instinctively, he sat far back in the hack. But Donald, unluckily
turning at the sound of wheels, had caught sight of him; and he stopped
stock-still on the sidewalk at once, staring with unaffected interest.
"Well, I'll be darned!" he said, as the carriage came up with him.
"Whither away in the sea-going, old top?"
Unwillingly appearing at the window, Charles said: "Well, Donald....
Just driving around."
"Driving!--Thought you must be going to a funeral, at least," said
Donald, stepping along to keep up. "Here! Stop the blamed thing! I want
to look you over."
"You don' want me to stop, does you, Mist' Garrott?" bawled down Walter
Taylor from the box.
"No, I told you! Go on!"
Walter cut his nag a mighty crack, and with the same movement drew rein
sharply.
"Here's yo' number, suh!" he cackled, with great merriment. "One seven,
like you said! Yassuh!"
So the hack halted, and the fare reluctantly discharged himself. His
friend, having come up, halted, too, a few feet away; it was noted that
his gibing expression had suddenly altered. And then Charles understood
instantly that this fool's destination was no other than his own.
"Oho!" said Donald, slowly and suspiciously. "So this is where you were
driving around to?"
Controlling an immense complication of sensations, Charles said coldly:
"You mean you're going to--the Flowers', too?"
"You've guessed it!" retorted the engineer, with a slight touch of
consciousness. And he added, assuming an indifferent air: "Just got to
stop by and leave a book Miss Flower lent me."
And then, for the first time, Charles noticed the volume in a gaudy
wrapper protruding beneath Donald's sturdy arm. The coincidence was
remarkable, to say the least of it. It was also exceedingly annoying.
"Time, too," quoth the primitive male. "I've had it since before I went
to Wyoming."
On Angela's sidewalk, the two young men stood gazing hard at each other.
Whatever the argument in the case, it was surely Charles's higher nature
that spoke at last, icily but firmly:--
"I am going here to return a book, and also to pay a call--on the
family. If you wish, I will return your book for you."
"Couldn't think of troubling you, Charlie, old top."
"As you like, of course--"
"But as I'm going in, anyway, why need you stop at all? Glad to take
charge of your book for you. Save you a little hack-fare."
To this, Charles disdained reply. So the two members of the coterie,
with their books to return under their arms, stepped up the bricked
walkway side by side.
Charles rang the Flowers' loud little bell. Having done so, he turned on
the shabby verandah, with the intention of looking Donald hostilely up
and down. But he found that Donald was already looking him up and down,
in the most hostile manner conceivable. Then the youth's dullness, his
grotesque conception of a male rivalry here, his impervious blind
asininity,--all this acting upon the original concern about the Call,
produced a sudden infuriation. Speech flowed from Charles:--
"Of all the laughing jackasses that ever broke loose from a zoo, I do
think you take the cake, Manford. How you keep from falling off bridges,
or butting out the pan where your brain ought to be on stone-copings,
passes all understanding. If I didn't have you to look at, I wouldn't
believe it possible that an ordinary well-meaning chucklehead could
deteriorate so horribly, just in a week or two."
Donald seemed slightly nonplussed by this attack. All that he could
muster in reply was some very poor childish stuff, introduced by
shakings of his head and "significant" tappings of his forehead.
"So that's why they sent him around here in a closed carriage--oho! Old
Doc Flower's an alienist--forgot that! H'm! Funny how it runs in the
family. First old Blenso, now poor Charlie-boy ..."
Then a servant opened the door, and relieved the high tension instantly
by saying, in reply to two simultaneous questions, that Miss Flower was
out.
Donald looked slightly crestfallen. Charles's look was the opposite. The
youth's presence here had strongly suggested that Angela was known to be
in, despite the fine weather. When the Flowers' servant--answering
Donald's "Oh, she's out, is she?"--said further that Miss Angela had
gone driving with a genaman, his relief rose to genuine thanksgiving.
And then Donald cleared the air completely by cavalierly handing in his
book, with only his card for acknowledgment, and clattering away down
the steps. Evidently, he sought a little amusement here, and nothing
more.
Charles himself hesitated on the veranda. The thing was over and done
with. The Call was formally and honorably paid. Perhaps he only wanted
to do something different from Donald; perhaps he thought to mark
signally his revised good opinion of Angela; or perhaps mere revulsion
of feeling swung him into exuberant excesses. At any rate, in the very
act of extending his book, he recalled a long-forgotten promise, and
said suddenly, but tentatively:--
"And Dr. Flower? I suppose he's out, too?"
"Him? Naws', he's in," said the slatternly and ill-favored woman.
"What!--he is? Are you sure?"
"Ef yo' want to see him, walk in."
"Ah--well, I'll just stop and see him for a few moments. That is, _if_
he happens to be at leisure."
So the hack waited in front of the Flowers', and Charles stepped (for
the first time on his own motion) over the threshold of Angela's Home.
He felt that this was a superfluous proceeding; it turned out
considerably worse. Having entered the Home, he found himself abruptly
plunged into the middle of it, as it were. In fact, the impromptu
extension of the Call to Dr. Flower, besides everything else that could
be said against it, proved as inopportune as could well have been
imagined.
The _contretemps_ indicated was due to the servant (Luemma, in short),
who apparently did not believe in announcing visitors, or perhaps had
never heard of the civil custom. She merely stood by, in a disapproving,
suspicious sort of way, while the caller deposited his book on the
hatstand beside Donald's, and removed his overcoat and gloves. And then
she said, with a manner no whit better than her appearance:--
"Walk this way."
Charles, necessarily assuming that this was the rule of the house,
walked that way.
The hall of the Home was narrow and dark, the pervading atmosphere noted
as somewhat cheerless. It was not lighted and decked for festivity now,
as on the famous night of the bridge-party: parlor and dingy little
dining-room, glimpsed in passing, wore (to the author's sensitive eye) a
depressing air, vaguely suggestive of failure, incompetence and the
like. But that, of course, is the front that poverty so commonly wears:
all the more reason that a hard-worked Temporary Spinster, or vicarious
Home-Maker, should wish to get out sometimes, and go and meet her
friends....
However, Charles also was conscious of a wish to get out. Why was he
doing this, exactly? Really, now, what was the sense of it?
The black worthy was leading him toward a shut door in the dusk beyond
the dining-room: the office, clearly, of that patientless provider,
Angela's father. Now the young man was aware of voices behind that door,
or rather of a voice. It was a woman's voice, pitched in rather a
complaining key, and for the first second Charles thought, with a start,
that it was Angela's. It wasn't, of course; but his steps instinctively
slackened.
"Ah--the Doctor seems to be engaged--after all," he threw out, in
lowered tones. "Perhaps I'd better come another day."
"Naws', he ain't engaged. Just him and Miz' Flower talkin'."
Charles, truth to tell, was scarcely reassured by that assurance: he did
not like to run in on a strange couple this way, in particular when the
lady was speaking in that tone. But his sour guide had not paused. And
now there came a different voice through the thin door: a man's voice,
faintly humorous, faintly sarcastic, and considerably weary. It was
recognizably the voice of the esteemed Doctor, and it said, with fatal
distinctness:--
"Is it possible you forget, madam, that you're speaking to your husband
and the father of your children?"
If the feet of the reluctant caller had lagged before, they now stopped
short. One of his overminds perceived instantly that the strange words
he had had no business to hear possessed a sort of distorted
familiarity, like a horrid parody of a sentiment known and established;
but as to that, there was not time to speculate now. What was only too
plain was that something like a domestic scene was afoot in the office
of the home, making the intrusion of a stranger peculiarly inapropos.
"Don't!--I'll not stop now!" he murmured hastily and sharply. "Just take
these cards here, and--"
But the maladroit blackamoor was already opening the door; and the young
man's last stand against the Call was put down with a brief and surly:--
"Genaman to see Doctor. Walk in."
That settled the matter, beyond any undoing. Charles Garrott was a
caller now, whether or no. With an embarrassment such as none of his
many calculations about this hour had anticipated, he stepped blundering
in upon Angela's unwitting parents.
Dr. Flower's small office was dark; its light came only through a single
window from a narrow air-well. Hence, the forms of the lady and
gentleman in it were at first but dimly apprehended. Having turned in
their seats at the sound which disturbed their privacy, they seemed to
be peering together, in silent inquiry, at the intruder. It was the
intruder's move, obviously; and, being in for it, he did his hasty best
to pluck a hearty calling manner over his decided malease.
"Oh!--good-afternoon, Dr. Flower! It's Garrott, Charles Garrott--perhaps
you may remember--"